


Faith or love

by Melime



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Community: femslashficlets, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, F/F, Religion, Religious Conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 08:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10805352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime
Summary: Her faith was important to her, but so was Sera.





	Faith or love

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [Fé ou amor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10805358) by [Melime GreenLeaf (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime%20GreenLeaf)



> Written for the [femslashficlets](http://femslashficlets.dreamwidth.org/) community, challenge #011 - faith.

Her faith was important to her. These were the stories she grew up listening to, the deities she believed in before she even knew the true meaning of believing in something, the faith that gave her people the strength to survive and thrive despite everything that had been done to them over the centuries. She still remembered sitting with her brother and other children of the clan to be educated, to be told of their gods and how important they were, how important that part of their culture was, and that celebrating it was part of what made the Dalish so different from city elves.

Ellana never hated city elves, although she knew many of her clan who did, nor did she ever thought she was better than them by simple virtue of their blood, although she knew that belief was even more common. She always believed that the gods would smile kindly upon those who had been robbed of their roots, no matter where they were in the long and arduous process of reclaiming them.

It wasn’t even that she believed in all the stories, or believed that they happened exactly how they were told. That was not what faith was about. To her, faith meant knowing there were things that didn’t fit anywhere and other things that clearly had to be wrong, and that regardless of that, the core of what was being taught was right, and any error was simply a consequence of the stories being passed down through generations.

It seemed obvious that no history could survive intact through the passage of time, but that any mistake made in the retellings meant very little when their general message was so important.

She wouldn’t say she was a religious person, not exactly. Religion always made her think of the Andrastians and she never cared much for their way of preaching one thing and then doing another, and the way she was praised now, the way they finally saw her as having value, not because of who she was but despite that, only made the situation worse. She wouldn’t go as far as picking a fight or even pushing people away for believing in the Maker, but she didn’t much care about what they believed.

Still, she really thought this thing with Sera would work despite their religious differences.

Because the thing was, Sera was learning more about elven culture for her. And Sera didn’t see her as just the Herald of Andraste, there to save the world. Sera wasn’t afraid to toss a pie at Ellana if she thought that would lift the mood and help with morale. Sera was sweet, and kind, and fierce, and funny, and crass, and impulsive. She was everything Ellana could dream of, all wrapped in a little elven packet with badly cut hair and ripped clothes and a smile that could make you weak on the knees.

And things weren’t always easy. Sometimes they fought, and disagreed on the best course of action, and sometimes she could tell just by looking at her that Sera disapproved something she had just done. Sera feared magic, and there was nothing Ellana could do about that other than guarantee Sera that hers was always in check, even if that didn’t make much good. They fought over mage rights, and trusting mages, and it hurt Ellana in ways she couldn’t express, because that was a part of her and she couldn’t just deny it. But relationships don’t have to be perfect because people aren’t perfect. A relationship has to be good, and that it was. Sera hated ‘elfy stuff’ and still tried to learn more about it for her, Sera would never want her to be locked in a tower, Sera learned to trust Ellana with her magic despite her fears.

Things were good, and they could have remained that way, if it weren’t for what happened.

Because, suddenly, it was all too much for Sera.

And she couldn’t blame her, she really couldn’t, because Ellana still didn’t know how to make sense of everything they had learnt about her ancestors and the ancient gods. She still didn’t know how that would fit with everything she always believed in since she was a little girl. She wasn’t even sure if her faith could survive what they’ve learnt, but it was her decision to make, and hers alone.

It wasn’t fair of Sera to ask this of her, especially when Ellana herself was still dealing with all that confusion and even the faint sense of betrayal she felt. It was their worst fight yet, and they both knew this was a breaking point. Ellana could renounce her faith, and by certain extent her people, and be with Sera, or she could place believes she knew couldn’t be quite right over the love of her life.

It was supposed to be an easy decision. True love isn’t supposed to demand change, or force you to abandon your faith, or place their needs above yours, or lie, that was a big one, lying to a loved one, about something that truly mattered, was just wrong. And it would be so easy for her to say that this was evidence that they didn’t truly love each other, but she didn’t, she couldn’t. She couldn’t abandon what she always believed to be true because of an ultimatum, and she couldn’t lose Sera because of a lie that had been unintentionally told by her people for generations.

So she did the only thing that was left to do: she lied. Ellana told Sera she didn’t believe in any of the things her people believed, she told Sera she was with her on that. It was a lie, and perhaps it wouldn’t be in the future, but it was then. Still, it was the only thing she could do, because choosing between Sera and her faith would have been not only hard, but impossible. She needed both to keep going, especially now.


End file.
